In a one-sentence order, the court upheld a state judge's decision in August that required Carl Romanelli to gather an unusually high 67,070 signatures to qualify for the Nov. 7 ballot alongside Republican Sen. Rick Santorum and Democratic state Treasurer Bob Casey.

Romanelli had argued that the formula for calculating the number of signatures should be based on last year's judicial retention elections in which state judges run unopposed and voters cast up-or-down votes on whether they should serve additional 10-year terms.